Can I add more color label options to organize my cards?

[Reed Meyer]

I'm adding a "+1" here because it was implied in the comments that the additional colors are not on the near-term roadmap because the feature "is not very highly requested".  So an additional comment saying "please add this" can't hurt.

Just out of curiosity: Does the Trello dev team dogfood its own product?  If they do, I guess they just haven't had a need for more colors.

[Charisma Riley]

I could not agree more. How on earth would adding more colors (or the ability to add custom colors – my company would love to be able to use the same colors we use internally for other efforts) affect the software in absolutely any way?? There is no known security or resource-use reason that colors could not be unlimited, especially if unlimited labels per card are already a thing. The colors produced would add no problems whatsoever. It's quite bizarre that this is even an issue. Is there an official Jira issue where I can vote for this essential feature?

[Matt Beamish]

I find myself trying to think of technical or business reasons they might have made this decision. This is one that might actually have a technical basis: a limited colour palette (say 16 colours) can be represented at a database level in maybe a bytes worth of storage, vs an rgb hex value which is 3 bytes. That might seem trivial, but over a couple of trillion records it adds up significantly.

I’m in no way saying it’s right, but once again trying to figure out their rationale for not implementing this...

[Charisma Riley]

This *could* be a thing if they already didn't make it so that you can create and use an unlimited number of labels per card, with 8 bits per character of text and graphically represented color bars that are way larger in their file size per element than simply representing a color on the screen. This potentially makes each card how large?? The color itself becomes irrelevant, completely lost in the weight/size and bandwidth required by implementation of the graphical elements. And by them telling us that we can have "unlimited" labels per card, this tells me that none of these things are concerns for them. What we are talking about then, is simply allowing representation of more colors, which ends up a drop in the ocean compared to the rest.

[Matt Beamish]

I like to believe that the reason I play devil's advocate is so that when an Atlassian employee finally reads this thread all of their objections will have neatly been dealt with.

In reality, as soon as I clicked "submit" on this one it occurred to me how fallacious it was :)

[Charisma Riley]

I truly understand what you meant to do. I, too, tried to give them the benefit of the doubt at first. But how they have completely manhandled, neutered, and *still* buggified Confluence Cloud beyond belief has led me to realize otherwise. :)

[Morgan Benjamin]

Yeah, whatever reasoning there is for a limited color swatch might work, at a minimum, for the default Trello.

Yet, not allowing i.e. a free add-on to select label colors, esp when you've now added unlimited labels, really contradicts your own workflow logic (and obviously irks more than a few, myself included). Your labels ARE colors, the title doesn't even show on the card - how are people supposed to effectively organise in the workflow Trello themselves are proposing, without a customisable pallete!?

Also, for a minimum of colors, as mentioned above, this material swatch makes much more sense, at a minimum: https://getmdl.io/customize/index.html

[Joana Lopes]

I have almost the same problem.

I use the color to tag diferent gols. But in this moment we have more gols than colors.

Anyone can help me?

Thanks.

Joana

[Daphna Keidar]

+1 to show that being able to choose custom colors is indeed a needed feature. I assume there are many, many others that want this feature but didn't take the time to contact you or find this thread.

I was really surprised to discover that a color picker hasn't been added by now. It's not even a complicated feature to develop. 

[Brittany Joiner]

I think an angel loses its wings every time this thread is revived... of all the features and functionality Trello provides, I don't blame them for de-prioritizing more colored labels so that they can do cool pieces of automation like Butler and new views of boards and integrations with other tools. And as one who is a very avid Trello user, needing more colors for my labels has literally never been an issue for me. I rely on the text of the label more than the color. Just throwing that out there :) 

[frsh-inc]

"i don't need this feature, so it must not be necessary." is what i'm hearing. 

it's obvious there are a large number of people who *do* want the feature. and, maybe if it were superfluous, or maybe if it were difficult to implement, then perhaps the cold shoulder would be justified. 

but the color labels are a key piece of information architecture. and they become an important piece of a workflow - but without the ability to have more colors, it limits the role the colored labels can take in the process. 

i'm over it, though. it's obvious Atlassian doesn't give a shit about the feature, and i feel like Trello has jumped the shark anyway. 

[Brian Jackson]

We will keep reviving this thread because many of us do need more colors. I have thousands of cards so the label text view is very distracting. The minimized color label view is much easier to use and takes up less screen space. Every big competitor of Trello has a color picker for labels. 

And don't get me wrong, I love Trello. Our entire business revolves around it. I also think moving Butler into Trello more the way they did was a smart move. However, the color label thing should have been resolved years ago. 

So until then, we'll keep reviving these threads, we'll keep tweeting, and we'll keep asking. 

[Richard Osborne]

I think we'll find it's become an egotistical principle now, where the developers egos are now more important than this feature. Their pride is getting in the way of doing it and it's a matter of principle for them not to build this feature because they know best and they will educate us to adapt.

This feature will never be built

[jstamm-s101]

If you read the text, then why use the colors at all? I believe that it only makes sense to have either no colors or to have a higher number of colors about which it can reasonably be said the each color is distinguishable from the others at a glance. We’re certainly not at that number yet, so as it stands, it’s an incomplete feature that is impeding a lot of people.

[bd]

Brittany Joiner - "Trello enthusiast and Atlassian Community Leader."  (are you getting paid by Atlassian, Brittany?) - doesn't feel like a company should have their core discipline in order before they make "cool stuff".  She can't blame them for blowing off customers who have been asking for a basic feature - ubiquitous in all other software everywhere - because she personally doesn't need it.  And thinks "angels lose their wings" when customers who need this basic feature continue to ask for it because they've been ignored for years.

Good for you, Brittany - you don't need more colors.  Then why are you here?  This thread isn't for you!

Enthuse on, Brittany.  Enthuse on.

[jstamm-s101]

@bd You missed the point. I’m saying that if someone (in this case Brittany Joiner) takes the position that this isn’t important because they just read the text anyway, then they must necessarily support removing colors altogether, which I don’t think anyone actually does want. Thus, the only other tenable position is implementing a higher number of distinct colors.

But you do know that this isn’t a life or death situation, right? You’d do well to add a little decorum to your discourse. The combativeness and snark you’re exhibiting toward Brittany for disagreeing with you, besides being inappropriate for a technical forum, just increases the likelihood that they’ll keep ignoring this request. Argue your point like a composed adult and things will go better.

[bd]

Thanks for clarifying, jastamm, that makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is you thinking I may think this is a life or death situation.  Of course it's not.  Regarding the snarkiness - is being polite working, jstamm?  We're going on three years, how did politeness work?

Is it polite to ignore your customers for years, jstamm, when they're asking for a simple ubiquitous feature?  Is this decorum?  Should we continue to be polite when they are not being polite?  Just sit there and take it because...you find it inappropriate?  Is it appropriate to blow off your customers when they ask for something that one would expect in this type of product?

If Brittany is getting paid by Atlassian (or is receiving favors from them), do you think it's polite to not disclose that when commenting on a public thread that doesn't even concern her?  I think it's a perfectly valid question to ask her if she's getting paid to convince us we don't want what we know we want when she describes herself as a community leader.  It very well may be that she is not, but as a question it's entirely valid because it would cause a conflict of interest and increase the likelihood that her sentiments are disingenuous.

That, and the only things I wrote were pulling out the implications and revealing the subtext of what she actually said.

[jstamm-s101]

You didn’t respectfully ask her. You straight up made the accusation and then spoke down to her as if it were true before receiving an answer. Try honey instead of vinegar. No one wants to go out of their way to develop a feature for someone who’s acting like an ass.

[bd]

I asked her.  If you re-read my post you'll see a parenthetical where I asked her, then  I immediately after I moved onto different topics.  I'm not assuming or accusing anything, she very well may not work for Atlassian or be receiving favors from Atlassian for her "Community Leadership", but it's a valid question.

Coming onto a thread that doesn't concern you (because you don't have the problem), belittling the concerns of the people that DO have the concern (which you also did a little bit, acting like a bit of an a-- yourself (also by saying I made an accusation, which is flat out false))), virtually selling us Atlassian's other products that we're not asking about under the questionable guise as their "Community Leader", someone implying that - because their personal interests are being met - that that somehow means the interests of others are nothing to be that concerned about - these are actions of a person acting like an a-- (to use your word).  I have no problem acting like one back to reflect that fact to her.  If she doesn't work for (or get paid or favors from) Atlassian, it doesn't change three of the four points above.

I use honey when I want to bring people closer, I definitely don't want to bring someone closer who's behaving the way she's behaving.  Vinegar it is.

Belittle other people's concerns because you're personally satisfied?  Vinegar.  Coming onto a thread that doesn't concern you to lament "angels are losing their wings" because of people expressing their valid concerns?  Vinegar.  Tell someone they're accusing someone when they ask a valid question?  Vinegar - that is, jstamm, unless you can show me where in my post I "straight up made the accusation and then spoke down to her as if it were true before receiving an answer".  Where is that, exactly, in my post jstamm?  Or does it only exist in your mind?  All I see is the question, then a rolling out of her subtext, none of which is under the assumption she is getting paid, because she may not be.

I'm un-following this thread.  Atlassian apparently doesn't care.  After re-reading a post below where an Atlassian said that color pickers weren't necessarily part of the "Trello Style" ...I knew it was time to stop.

I'm using Click-Up now, which is leagues better anyway.  After seeing this "Community Leader" come out and act so dismissively to people in the community that have a concern,  I'm done.  Great "leadership".

Good luck everyone, maybe I'll stop by again in 2050 to see if anything has changed.

[jstamm-s101]

Bye

[Tammi Labrecque]

... wow. 

Imagine thinking that because you personally don't need a feature, no one needs it. LOL

[Igor Vanucci]

We are still awaiting for this feature...it's ridiculous to be limited to 10 colors when we have multiple labels to organize our boards. 

[Brian Jackson]

This is desperately needed. Pretty much every competing tool makes this super simple. Chrome extensions are not a solution, especially when working with teams. 

[Brancy10]

I know it's far from perfect, but I threw together a quick Chrome Extension that allows for unlimited colors. See the link below:

https://github.com/SimplexShotz/Trello-Colors-Extension

[Ben Jenkins]

It's cool that this is available, but sad that it has to be. 

[Michele Nelson]

I installed this extension and created a bunch of custom colors, and it was wonderful. Until I rebooted. Sadly, now my labels look like this:

[Michele Nelson]

FYI, removing and reinstalling the extension fixed this. I'll test and see if I have to do this every time I reboot and/or restart Chrome.

[frsh-inc]

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. so now we have "covers" for cards and you can choose a color and your entire card can be that color, but there still isn't an unlimited/customizable selection of colors? 

here's the workaround: somebody upload every color imaginable to Unsplash, name the colors their corresponding hex-code value, and then...voila! problem solved. 

....

....

:facepalm:

[Justin Roberts]

+1

[Devon Henderson]

Hello Kearsten!

If I am understanding you correctly, each team member has a color assigned to them, and then you use yellow, green, and red to signify task progress, correct?

I have a bit of an unorthodox suggestion. Perhaps you could change, just slightly, how you show your team member colors. Instead of using labels, what if you each uploaded a solid block of your own color as your Trello profile picture? So say your color is salmon pink. Instead of using a salmon pink label, you upload a solid block of salmon pink as your profile picture, and assign yourself to your cards.

This way, cards assigned to you would look like this:

Whatever color you're assigned will be in the bottom right, and then your progress labels at the top. This allows you to essentially scale infinitely, as you can just keep creating different profile colors for people outside of Trello. It has the added benefit of enabling the various shortcuts involved with assigning yourself cards, like being able to see all of your salmon pink cards on your Cards page, as well as to filter a board to just your tasks by pressing Q.

Hope this helps!

[LanceTrahan]

That's a really good workaround. Though any users you have for that board may want to make an account specifically for that board so that any other boards they may be using aren't influenced by the profile pic change.

[bd]

Although I appreciate the suggestion, frankly I think it's about time that users STOP working around what amounts to neglect and stupidity on the part of developers.  We should not be investing our time in something that this developer is apparently too stupid or too uncaring to implement.  Frankly I think they're attempting to manipulate their customers with the lack of colors, because it's tough to rationalize how people who design such a piece of software are THAT stupid and incompetent.

There is absolutely NO good reason users should not be able to choose any color they want in 2018.  Period.  It's time to stop allowing them to shrug their neglect onto the users shoulders where they can get people doing work for them for free that they should be competent enough to do in the first place.  

The best thing for all of us to do is trash Trello and Atlassian and support companies that are not filled with either morons or outright assholes.

[Tammi Labrecque]

Any workaround that involves using something ELSE to do what labels should be doing means we can't use the something else for ITS intended purpose. 

This is insanity. 

[Alex Waite]

Hi! Alex from Trello Support here. I’m really excited to announce that, as of today, we have released 20 new label colours to Trello. We appreciate your feedback and your patience while we worked on this new feature. You can read more on our blog post over at https://blog.trello.com/20-new-trello-label-colors

[Rachid El Guerrab]

It's now mid-2022 and we still don't have enough colors.

[Chris Bartels]

Its now 2022. These colors are most likely “programmer art” since the programmer was assured in his own mind that the UX or design team would later give him either a set of colors they had spent months perfecting, or instructions to allow the user to give the user full control over their own colors. Clearly something went wrong somewhere along this path of different teams interacting with each other and the result? A final product included “programmer air” inadvertently in the final release. I know very little programming but still even I know a color selector to allow users custom background colors is not a difficult or time consuming task. They simply have not changed it because they do not WANT to change it. Or at least, let’s hope. If they’re actually unable to get something as simple as color selection correct, what more important features completely unknown to the user have seen the same treatment? Encryption? Privacy? Backups? User account storage? I suppose we will never really know until Trello is all over the news headlines. Just remember that every time you tag something. They are specifically choosing to not make this change. A change that many users want changed and any new user would expect it to already have been changed. Trello survives because it is unique. Not because it has best in class anything (particularly color customization). And users don’t even want best in class customization, they just want the programmer art replaced with something that took more than 30 seconds to come up with. (That’s the end of my rant, but just in case—“Programmer art” is not a derogatory term. It refers to the quick and dirty placeholder art a programmer might put into their work, knowing that a design team would one day replace it with something much better anyway. They know their time is best spent elsewhere but if the art section is not yet ready, he/she will need to make something quick and dirty [at least, it should be] as a placeholder. They realize there is no need to spend company time to make it look good at this stage as it will simply be replaced, regardless of how much time and effort they put into it.)

[Reed Meyer]

This thread, the most-liked and fourth most-viewed question in all of Trello, has become a joke.  I think the dev team checks in on this thread from time to time to get a laugh.

[Simon Frühauf]

I'm only here to say yes, more colors are needed. Or at least give us the option to show more labels on cards by default, e.g. labels without color (doesn't have to be all of them, give labels a by default on toggle that you can use to hide them on the card front). 

[dperolio]

Quite insane that this is an issue. I hope it's solved soon, as I'm handling a rather large project where 10 colors just isn't enough, but it doesn't seem likely. :/

[Madison Madrid]

I am piloting Trello as a project management solution across my company and this is a very annoying aspect of the tool that might be the deal breaker for us. It is clearly something your customers care about and really seems like an easy fix. There should at the very least be a Power Up that allows for a color picker..

[Branden Stall]

If you have not already built your workflow within Trello, you might look at AirTable. It is more robust and has unlimited labels (colors)

[Gina Anderson]

I just wanted to add that I'm a new user that went searching on how to get more colors for the labels and ended up here. Count me in, I would like more colors or the ability to pick my own. I really couldn't fathom why this wasn't already available, I thought I had to be missing something.

[jstamm-s101]

You're not missing anything, Atlassian has just decided that they know what we need better than we do.

#atlassian-knows-best

[jstamm-s101]

From Trello's own blog post announcing the Nachos Design System:

Trello has already solved the color palette problem in the design world. Let's see them carry it through to where it actually matters: the UX world.

[bd]

Is this a joke?

[jstamm-s101]

No joke. These colors are there in their site CSS, but we can't use them in our labels.

#atlassian-knows-best

[bd]

I see, thanks for clarifying.  

[Charisma Riley]

No, it’s not only not a joke, but Monday, ClickUp, Smartsheets, Hassl, and others already implemented this ages ago. . . Along with adding color swatches to cards for UI/UX design teams. But not here. Plain CSS could handle this. But whatevs. AKB, Atlassian Knows Best. :/

[Charisma Riley]

Aha! believes there is a need and has implemented it:

I can build my entire product lines out in the colors that Sales Enablement prefers, and the tasks that will get assigned, as well. This clearly can be done for very complicated product and task management programs. This has become silly; there is clearly no excuse except that Atlassian just isn't feeling it right now. 

[Charisma Riley]

Last week, ClickUp announced color labels and custom colors.

Obviously it matters to people.

[Charisma Riley]

Monday also allows custom colors.

/+3

Something Atlassian does not understand with their cloud products: people CARE about branding. Using our own colors matters a great deal to us. It's also really hard to encourage our staff to use our internal color systems and then *also* a separate external system that has all different and repeating colors. Maybe in the early 2000s, but today it is not necessary, and should be trivial to implement.

[Matt Beamish]

I want to point out, by the way, that Microsoft Planner - which I'm forced to use for certain work projects - gives me 6 predefined colours which I can name.  6 colours.  No options.  So... kudos to Trello for the small upgrade I guess?

[Bianca Frank Design]

Adding to the change.org petition for more colors on Trello. Thanks! Is there also a gofundme for this? I'd love to donate.....

[RC]

I'd like to chime in with all previous requests to add more color options for the labels (predefined, or using a color picker).

I've been happily using Trello for a couple of years now, both for private and professional purposes, and I regularly encounter situations where I've run out of colors and need to create labels using a color that is already in use. I then need to choose between (a) having two labels with the same color, or (b) not creating a new label to avoid confusion.

Dear Trello product managers and developers, even though there are probably a lot of equally urgent stories on your backlog, I feel this is a feasible user story (e.g. start with doubling the number of available colors and provide a colorblindness pattern with them) that could make a lot of users happy ;)

Looking forward to seeing this change request being implemented!

[Simão Duarte]

It is 2022....No good answer to this... I'm testing before proposing our company to use Treloo. We have company codes for colours for a few things. I just tried to put the same colours here and failed miserably. As for the reasoning about the colour blind, we don't have any, but if we did, there are symbols that could help, but I can't add symbols on tags, so.... no good, one less company and client. Going to try Jira, monday, or stick to outlook...